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Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Superultramodern Scientism (SSism)

Author: Kedar Joshi (1979- )

Superultramodern Scientism (SSism) is Scientism of Superultramodern Science (SS). Without SSism, SS would be seen as a philosophy instead of science. SSism agrees with the definition of Science as a systematic body of knowledge. More systematic a body of knowledge is the more scientific it is.

SSism is essentially based on its critique of logical positivism as well as falsificationism and the principle of universal doubt. :

1. Critique of logical positivism -

Logical positivism is a doctrine that if some theory ( that is supposed to be speaking about the nature of physical /material reality ) is not verifiable then it is meaningless or absurd. SSism states that the meaning of a theory has nothing to do with its verifiabitlity but rather the nature of concepts it involves. ( This is axiomatic. )

2. Critique of logical falsificationism -

Logical falsificationism is a doctrine that if some theory ( that is supposed to be speaking about the nature of physical / material reality ) is not falsifiable then it is unscientific. Thus it is instead metaphysical, if at all meaningful. SSism states that falsifiability of a theory has nothing to do with its being scientific. (This is axiomatic.)

3. The principle of universal doubt -

It is the principle that 'anything may be possible' for what is believed to be 100 % certain at the moment may be because of the limited intellectual capacities of the believer. This suggests that no part / kind of science (including pure mathematics) is to be seen as absolutely certain. Thus the idea of science reduces to the idea of systematic body of knowledge where each group or proposition has its own probability attached to it.

The word philosophy, as it is distinguished from science, is misleading, as it means what philosophy contains is impossible to be a systematic body of knowledge and what science contains is certain or proved.